Biographical portraits of cities are in vogue. This lively addition to the genre is essentially a history, beginning with Columbus and the incursions of French pirates and ending with the fortunes of the Industriales, Cuba’s most popular baseball team. A former Latin America correspondent, Mark Kurlansky visited the island regularly in the 1980s and 1990s. At the start of that period, he met Cubans who had known their African-born grandparents: ‘Slavery lasted longer in Cuba than anywhere else in the Americas,’ writes Kurlansky.